PM Modi should acknowledge 'Make in India' a failure: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not mention 'Make in India' in his speech in the House and asserted he must acknowledge that the initiative was a "failure".

The Congress leader said no government in recent times -- the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) -- had been able to meet at scale the national challenge of providing jobs.

"Prime minister, in your speech, you didn't even mention 'Make in India'! The prime minister should acknowledge that 'Make in India', although a good initiative, is a failure. Manufacturing has fallen from 15.3 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 12.6 per cent -- the lowest in the last 60 years," Gandhi said in a post on X.

"India's youth desperately need jobs. No government in recent times, UPA or NDA, has been able to meet this national challenge at scale. We need a vision to address what's holding our manufacturing sector back, and prepare it to be competitive in the global economy of the future," the former Congress chief said.

Gandhi said this vision for production in India must also have a specific focus on emergent technologies such as electric motors, batteries, optics, and artificial intelligence.

"This is the only way to revive our manufacturing sector, develop cutting-edge manufacturing ability, and create the jobs we need. China is 10 years ahead of us and has a stronger industrial system -- this is what gives them the confidence to challenge us," he said.

"The only way to compete effectively with them is to build our production systems and for that we need vision and strategy," he added.

Claiming that the prime minister's Make in India initiative had failed, Gandhi on Monday presented an alternative vision of "greatly" enhancing the participation of Dalits, tribals and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), as well as "ensuring that the energy and mobility revolution was not given up to the Chinese".

He had, however, conceded that successive governments -- be it the Congress-led UPA or the the BJP-led NDA -- had not been able to tackle unemployment and give a clear-cut answer to youngsters on it.

Speaking on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, the Congress leader had centred his speech around what a presidential address under an I.N.D.I.A. bloc government would be like.